


Woe To Him That Is Alone

by otter



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-13
Updated: 2012-04-13
Packaged: 2017-11-03 13:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otter/pseuds/otter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When gods are proved false, what do men have left to hold on to?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woe To Him That Is Alone

Do-rje is seven years old when the fever touches him, but he lingers through six more seasons. He lies in bed while his body slowly wastes away, and he thinks deeply on life, death, the stars, the moons, the grass and singing crickets. At night, when the work is done, his mother sits on the ground beside his bed and chants, and sings, and quietly asks that the Great Mother save her son. She never begs, or pleads, because that would be undignified for everyone.

He is not surprised when, as his lungs fail and he feels death come as surely as if it had arms to embrace him, his mother's request is granted.

The Goddess has no name, but she is known to all of the people, and she is the mother of all things that are and will be, and she is impossibly beautiful and glowing. She stands at his bedside in the early morning dimness, smiles a gentle smile, and tells Do-rje that she is there to take him with her into the spirit realms. She says that he is to be the first, but says nothing more to explain what he is the first of. He does not question, because he has spent much time thinking deeply on life, death, the stars, the moons, the grass and singing crickets. He understands much, and is unafraid.

He Ascends, although this is not the word he might have chosen for it. And when he is one of them, among the universe and the stars, stretched out and so thin, so cold, he understands all at once.

He sees a creation devoid of gods. He sees no reason or plan, nothing made real by belief, no benevolent omnipotence to look after his family. He sees no deity to explain why the fever comes, why the goats die, why people grow old. The universe is crushingly empty, alone, madness without any reason; his new existence, his new knowledge, are too much to bear. He is beyond life, beyond death, beyond any caring for the stars, the moons, the grass and singing crickets.

The being that he is explodes outward and inward, like the unfathomable births of stars. When he is reborn into his world, it is on the top of a snow-covered mountain far from the hut that was once his home. He is screaming, and he does not stop until he is dead.

The being who will one day call herself Oma Desala watches him die, but she does not reach out to touch him with the incorporeal flicker of light that might've once been called a finger. The little body on the mountain is slowly covered in new-falling snow, and Oma Desala thinks that perhaps she has not selected the right world, or the right human. But she is certain that some among them must be capable of ascension. She will seek harder. She will attempt again.

It will be many years before a man named Daniel Jackson will come to her on a world called Kheb; many years before she will bring him into the true vastness of the universe. But in all that time, Oma Desala will never perfect the process, and she will never help a human ascend who will achieve the Oneness that her own people have. Her failures will be many, but still she will continue, and give little thought to the human debris in her wake.

She will continue to do what she has always done, because she does not know what else to do with herself. The humans think her a god, and she begins to believe them.

~*~

Daniel's been a little off ever since he came back. Janet says, over and over, that he's been through what amounts to some serious trauma, and that an adjustment period is completely normal. That maybe he won't ever be just like he was before, but none of them are just like they were before he 'died,' either; they've all lived a year, and a year can change a lot.

It's changed Daniel. At least, Jack thinks so. Sometimes he isn't sure that the man he knew is still in there at all, and at other times it's as if Daniel had never left.

Most of the time, though, Daniel seems like Daniel, just maybe a little older. It's as if he's gone backpacking across Europe or served a year in the Peace Corps or joined the Army or done any of the other things that seem to change kids into responsible grown-ups. He's more confident, and a little quieter, calm and unruffled. When Daniel folds his arms across his ribs now, Jack no longer gets the impression that he's trying to hold himself together; now he just does it when he needs a place to put his hands.

But the confidence means other things, too. He's not afraid anymore to ask for what he wants.

The weather is unseasonably cold when Daniel shows up on Jack's doorstep on a Saturday -- day one of a glorious four-day post-mission stand-down -- and says, very calmly, that they really ought to talk.

When Jack lets him in, Daniel pins him against the wall in the hallway, thoroughly explores Jack's mouth with his tongue, and then steps back and says, "Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. What do you think?"

They hardly leave the bed for four days.

Daniel practically moves in after that, and Jack doesn't tell anyone that Daniel whispers the language of the Ancients in his sleep.

~*~

When they first arrive on the planet, nothing about it seems anything but routine. The locals are friendly, even if the weather is a little inhospitable, and the premiere Geek Squad of the SGC has been there for weeks already. There's no reason for SG-1 to even be there, except that the eggheads have found some energy signature that's got them all hot and bothered.

Jack wanders the village, getting the lay of the land, keeping an eye on his team from a distance. Carter's already inside the main tent, going all girly over readings and seismographs and aerial mapping. Daniel's teaching some of the local kids how to build a snowman, and Teal'c is helping by picking up the huge balls of snow that Daniel has been rolling, and stacking them on top of one another.

Jack clutches his P-90 a little tighter, shivers, and gets himself in touch with the one-ness of being incredibly cold and bored. He considers helping with the snowman -- maybe he can teach the kids snow angels, too, or maybe he can engage Daniel in a snowball fight like they did at Janet's Christmas party a few years ago -- but he knows that it isn't safe to relax until he's mapped out his escape routes and assessed the area.

An hour later, assessment completed, he sneaks up behind an oblivious Daniel, shoves a freezing handful of ice down the back of the man's coat, and then runs like hell. He is pursued, and struck by enemy fire in the form of snowballs, but he eventually escapes thanks to his thorough survey of the village. When he feels the danger has passed and he finally emerges from his hiding place, he's immediately ambushed by a cold, wet archaeologist, who mercilessly shovels snow into the collar of Jack's coat until Jack's howling with laughter and begging for mercy.

They just lay there for awhile, covered in sweat and panting, with Daniel sprawled all over Jack's body and neither of them minding. Then Daniel's hand worms between layers of clothing, delves down into Jack's pants, and even though his hand is cold and slick, it warms quickly against Jack's flesh, and he strokes steadily and evenly until Jack comes right there in his pants, sprawled on his back at the edge of an alien village.

He sighs against Daniel's lips, and they get up, and somehow Jack can't find it in himself to think that maybe this is wrong, incredibly crazy and life-threatening.

Well, he thinks that a little. But he doesn't linger over the idea.

Carter isolates the signal she wants, starts wildly theorizing about alien power sources and powerful reactors, but they have to wait around for hours while the SGC assembles the equipment they need, because the spot that Carter wants to hike to is on top of a mountain. Well, of course it is. Jack isn't sure why he bothered to hope for anything easier.

While they're waiting, he walks with Daniel out into the grove of skinny black trees on the village's western border. Jack drops to his knees -- it's almost comfortable, in the snow -- and swallows Daniel's cock. Jack's fingers dig into Daniel's thigh to remind him not to make a noise. When they get back, everyone's still waiting around, so Jack leaves Daniel with Carter to talk about science-y things, while he and Teal'c walk the perimeter again. It should be boring, but it isn't, because he can still taste Daniel in his mouth.

When the equipment comes in, they begin their trek up the nearby mountain. Daniel seems more like his old self than he ever has, because he talks all the way up the mountain. He talks to their native guides; he talks to Sam; he talks to Jack; he even talks to a silent and smiling Teal'c.

At one point he says to Jack, "They call this mountain Dorje Lakpa, which means 'the mountains of many sacred thunderbolts.' There's a mountain by the same name on Earth, in the Himalayas. Apparently these people gave their mountain that name because there was some sort of massive storm at the peak a long time ago; lightning actually blew off the top of the mountain."

Carter weaves closer, and though she's hardly visible in all her winter gear, the enthusiasm in her voice is clear. Jack senses that wild speculation is impending. "Did they say how long ago?" Sam asks. "If the site was a power station, it might've suffered some sort of failure, or that event might've uncovered a power source that was buried underground."

Daniel says something to one of their guides, and the two of them chatter and gesticulate at each other for awhile, and then Daniel turns back and says, "Sorry, Sam. Their methods of timekeeping are too complex; it'll take me awhile to figure it out. The best I can understand is that this event occurred during one of the ancient ages, a time before their mothers. The way he tells it, it sounds like it might be part of some creation myth."

Carter seems disappointed, but she sticks with them through the journey, using Daniel as a go-between to quiz their guides about the mountain.

Jack slogs on through the snow, staring ahead, and wishes he were back in his house, in front of the fire, watching Daniel strip off his clothes.

The top of the mountain is flat, as promised, and Carter seems very excited about all of the samples and readings she's taking. She wanders the treacherously icy plateau for awhile, following the beeping instrument in her outstretched hand as if it were a willful dog on a leash, but when the beeping finally turns into an steady, excited squeal, she finds herself standing right next to Daniel. Jack wanders over as well, frowning because Daniel is so still, in that eerie way that he gets sometimes.

Daniel is staring into a mound of clear ice, and somewhere in the middle of it all there's a dark shape that could be a rock, or could be something else entirely. Carter consults her machines again, and then calls for the tools that will help them excavate whatever it is.

But Daniel shakes his head, and his voice is wavering with tears when he whispers, "This is wrong. This is all wrong. This can't be right."

He doesn't seem to feel Jack's hand on his shoulder, or hear Jack's voice asking him if he's okay. He's not okay. He's sobbing now, and he wrenches off one of his gloves and puts his hand against the ice as if to brace himself. Jack shouts and tries to pull him back, but it's too late. There must be frostbite already, and Jack won't be surprised if Daniel's hand is stuck to the ice.

Daniel drops to his knees, and his sobs have turned into grief-stricken howls, and somewhere deep in the ice, the thing that is buried there *moves*, and then a thin voice begins to scream in response.

Then the ice explodes and razor-sharp shards of it fly everywhere, and the thing inside is laid bare on the ground. It's a boy, with the same olive skin and Asian features as the rest of the natives here, and he's screaming and screaming until Daniel crawls forward and touches him. When Daniel's fingers come gently to rest on the boy's arm, the tension abruptly leaves the skinny little body, and the scream turns into a sigh. Daniel's hand falls through air where an arm used to be, and the shape that was once a boy crumbles abruptly into mist and ash, and is carried away on the wind.

~*~

He finds Daniel on the roof, sitting in the lone chair in front of the telescope, staring out into the sky. Jack leans against the railing and looks up, too, at the stars and the shining gibbous moon. The summer heat still lingers on the air, though the sun went down hours ago. Jack cut the lawn this evening, so everything smells like grass, and in the garden there's a trio of crickets singing. The night is peaceful, and still.

Finally Daniel says, "'Woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.'"

Jack grunts and says, "That from one of your dusty books?"

"Bible," Daniel answers. "Ecclesiastes."

Jack frowns and crosses his arms over his chest. "I thought you were an atheist."

Daniel shrugs and turns his chair a little so he can face Jack and prop his feet up on the rail next to where Jack's leaning. "It's an ancient text, too. I don't have to believe what it says in order to read it."

"Fair point," Jack says. "The General told me he'd sent you home; I thought you were back at your apartment. You've been up here the whole time?"

Daniel nods, but says nothing.

"I read your report," Jack says, which should earn him a surprised reaction, but doesn't. "But I can't say that I really... understood it. At all."

Daniel looks back at him, and offers a very soft, almost invisible smile. Jack spent a few years stationed in Japan, and he saw Buddhas in the monasteries there who had smiles less enigmatic.

"There is no understanding," Daniel says. "And that, I suppose, is the problem." He sighs, and Jack says nothing, because there's nothing he can say, really. After a long, quiet time, Daniel says, "I guess I keep thinking that if I wait up here long enough, Oma will come and explain it to me. I know she's the one who... he told me, somehow. That she came for him. Something went wrong. I don't understand what, but Oma must."

"Sure," Jack says, trying to sound a bit chipper and hopeful. "I mean, *she* understands things, right? Because she's Mother Nature."

That smile breaks through again, and it's infinitely sad. Daniel says, "Did you ever wonder why it was so easy for the Goa'uld to enslave so many humans, Jack? It's because we enslaved ourselves, before they ever came along. We want so desperately to believe that there's order in all of this that when we can't find any gods, we invent them. And when we see something that's beyond our understanding, we think that surely, it's divine." He sighs again, and it sounds frustrated, like he's angry at himself for believing in... something. "It's so easy to think of her as a god," he says, and now his voice is soft and quiet, as if he fears that his god will hear his blasphemy. "But she isn't, Jack. Orlin wasn't. None of them are. They're just as messed up as us, or the Goa'uld, or the Asgard or the Nox... no matter how wise any of us seem, we're all ultimately alone in the silence of the universe, and that makes us all just a little bit insane."

Jack isn't sure what to say to that; he wasn't exactly a philosophy major in college, and the weird sayings that Oma's monk and that kid Shifu had always been spouting made no sense to him. But there is some brand of order he understands, some form of insanity that makes perfect sense to him.

He reaches out and puts a hand on Daniel's leg, then moves closer. He leans over and presses his lips against Daniel's, ducks his tongue inside, and lets a hand rest on Daniel's chest, wandering its way lower. "We're not alone, Daniel," he says, against soft lips. His hand finds its mark and squeezes. Daniel moans into his mouth. "Forget Oma," Jack says. "Let's go inside."

The being who calls herself Oma Desala watches them go, but she does not reach out to her most recent failure. She can hear the mens' voices coming from the house below, and Oma Desala thinks that perhaps she has not selected the right world, or the right human. The first one was not prepared to leave his illusions behind. The last was not prepared to leave other things. But she is certain that some among them must be capable of ascension. She will seek harder. She will attempt again.

She will continue to do what she has always done, because she does not know what else to do with herself.

\-- the end --


End file.
